105 replies to this topic

[papeetepatrick]

I loved 'Watermill' and saw it only once.  But I think I associate it totally with Villella--I don't think it would interest me to see anyone else in it.

[87Sigfried87]

Helene, on Aug 12 2007, 08:00 PM, said:

Of the ones I remember -- a double-edged sword -- I used to think it was MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet, whose Balcony Pas de Deux reminds me of movie previews that are better than the movie.  Then I saw Manon at the Met in the '80's.

I absolutely agree with You.These two,taken as a whole are terribly boring.Even if I've to say that I'm taking back my bad opinion about Manon.I have it on DVD,the one with Antony Dowell and Jennifer Penney.She is,in my opinion,inconsistent.With or without her on stage,It'd be the same.No sign of interpretation....nothing special technically...but the whole ballet,when You see it many times,and like a medicine:in little doses every day,It comes less boring and more digestible.

[sandik]

canbelto, on Aug 12 2007, 05:38 PM, said:

Les Noces.

Oh, this is so interesting.  Personally, I love Les Noces, but can see how it wouldn't suit everyone.

[ngitanjali]

For me, it depends more on the dancers than on the actual ballet.  For example, I could never get bored with a Malakhov-Vishneva RJ or Manon, no matter whose choreography I'm watching, but with other dancers, the whole of Manon bores me to tears.  Don't even get me started on RJ.  I love the pdd with Ferri-Bocca, but even though Makarova was amazing and ethereal in the pdd w. Mckenzie, he wasn't at a level that could make me like the ballet more.

Also, ABT's Swan Lake.  Parts of it are lively, but there's just something missing to hold my attention for a long time, and I frequently walk around, bake cookies, or study biochem (I'm a Biochem student ) during some parts of the ballet.

[Figurante]

kfw, on Aug 12 2007, 04:17 PM, said:

canbelto, on Aug 12 2007, 01:38 PM, said:

Les Noces.

I'm not wild about that one, but the Robbins ballet based on folk traditions that really bored me the one time I saw it is "Dybbuk." Perhaps it would grow on me with further viewings.

I LOVED Dubbuk. I saw it three times I think. I was confused at first, but not bored. Rutherford is an absolute jem in this ballet.

[bart]

ngitanjali, on Aug 12 2007, 05:27 PM, said:

For me, it depends more on the dancers than on the actual ballet.

Absolutley.  Exception always can be made for a truly extraordinary  -- or historic -- cast.  

For example, I was totally absorbed while watching the 1960 video of Pas de Quatre with Alonso, Hayden, Slavenska and Kaye.  They say that a great actor can make reading the phone book spell-binding -- so why not certain dancers?

I've also noticed that certain iconic ballets -- often boring on their own in routine performances -- can be completely entrancing and hilarious when they are parodied.

[papeetepatrick]

bart, on Aug 12 2007, 06:31 PM, said:

ngitanjali, on Aug 12 2007, 05:27 PM, said:

For me, it depends more on the dancers than on the actual ballet.

Absolutley.  Exception always can be made for a truly extraordinary  -- or historic -- cast.  

For example, I was totally absorbed while watching the 1960 video of Pas de Quatre with Alonso, Hayden, Slavenska and Kaye.  They say that a great actor can make reading the phone book spell-binding -- so why not certain dancers?

This made me think of 'In Memory Of...' which I loved the one time I saw it because of Farrell, and only because of Farrell.  I would never be interested in seeing it again, and would not even really have wanted to see it with her more than once.  

But other discussions like 'The Dancer or the Dance' come to mind too, in which people were talking about the work coming first.  I think it definitely works both ways, with both good and bad works.  I know that I have very often gone to see certain dancers rather than keeping the image of the holy work before me in all-hallowed awe.  

I obviously will never achieve the inner circle of balletomanes, because I don't like 'Giselle' much even with Makarova and Baryshnikov in it (well, maybe the once.)   I also do like anything with Nureyev and Fonteyn in it, literally anything with the two together (yes, I would have liked them in 'Giselle').  A number of people find Macmillan's 'Romeo and Juliet' boring, I see, but that never occurred to me when I saw the Czinner movie.  I also saw a bunch of 'R & J's done by the Stuttgart one summer, and they may have also done the 'Dame aux Camellias' that someone else had found boring.  Marcia Haydee was doing it a good bit then, but I still found it boring.  Some ballets like 'Raymonda' also depend for me on the company and production, as I am not entranced by this ballet nor with its score.  'Don Quixote' is pretty corny, but if there are some spirited dancers like Ananiashvili in it, I don't mind.

[Klavier]

I found Eifman's Musagète to be boring, confusing, and musically incoherent.

Don Quixote, which I only saw once danced by the Boston Ballet (with Erica Cornejo!), seemed overlong and musically thin. There was one long stretch in the second act, if I recall, where one ballerina danced a variation, then Quixote crossed to one side of the stage and made a big dramatic gesture, then another variation, then Quixote crossed back to the other side of the stage and made the same gesture. Why couldn't he just stay put?

I find that if I don't care for the music, my interest in the ballet is often proportionally lessened. Give me Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Ravel, all the other great composers Balanchine and Robbins resurrected for ballet from Bizet to Bach to Brahms/Schoenberg - but I dread having to endure the musique dansante of Minkus, Adam, and to a somewhat lesser extent even Delibes. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy parts of them - like the Shades in Bayadère and the Bronze Idol - but I want music with greater nourishing power than cardboard.

I do find Liebeslieder Waltzes tedious, because it seems to me so dull for Brahms, and the dancing doesn't do much for me here either.

[Ray]

Klavier, on Aug 12 2007, 10:14 PM, said:

I do find Liebeslieder Waltzes tedious, because it seems to me so dull for Brahms, and the dancing doesn't do much for me here either.

If we're going to be heretical about Balanchine, Stars and Stripes pas de deux puts me right to sleep, as does most of Western Symphony.

Coppelia is the no. 1 boring classical ballet for me.

[Klavier]

Ray, on Aug 12 2007, 10:23 PM, said:

Klavier, on Aug 12 2007, 10:14 PM, said:

I do find Liebeslieder Waltzes tedious, because it seems to me so dull for Brahms, and the dancing doesn't do much for me here either.

If we're going to be heretical about Balanchine, Stars and Stripes pas de deux puts me right to sleep, as does most of Western Symphony.

Coppelia is the no. 1 boring classical ballet for me.

Add for me all that slow marching at the start of Union Jack.

[volcanohunter]

Paquita, on Aug 12 2007, 02:34 PM, said:

James Kudelka's "The Contract".

Most Kudelka bores me to tears, unless, as in the case of his Swan Lake, I'm too angry about the travesty of it all to fall asleep.

As long as we're ragging on the rep of Canadian companies, I'll add that I admired the early work of Mark Godden but couldn't make it through either his Magic Flute or Dracula. In both cases I abandoned the theatre not far into the second act.

However, I would like to cast two votes in defense of Les Noces and Liebeslieder Walzer, two of my all-time favourites.

[papeetepatrick]

Ray, on Aug 12 2007, 10:23 PM, said:

Coppelia is the no. 1 boring classical ballet for me.

That's another one that proves Bart's part of these points--the dancer transforming the ballet, although I think Coppelia is quite charming.  But Pat McBride in Balanchine's 'Coppelia' is one of the most delicious things I've ever seen, and Peter Schaufuss as Franz in the National Ballet of Canada was pretty smashing.

[Ray]

papeetepatrick, on Aug 12 2007, 11:59 PM, said:

Ray, on Aug 12 2007, 10:23 PM, said:

Coppelia is the no. 1 boring classical ballet for me.

That's another one that proves Bart's part of these points--the dancer transforming the ballet, although I think Coppelia is quite charming.  But Pat McBride in Balanchine's 'Coppelia' is one of the most delicious things I've ever seen, and Peter Schaufuss as Franz in the National Ballet of Canada was pretty smashing.

I guess it's what you have to sit through to get to the good bits that bores me.  

Firebird can also be extremely boring, which I find strange as the music is so great.

[JMcN]

Balanchine's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", which I had the misfortune to sit through twice at the Edinburgh Festival a couple of years ago.  I nearly fell asleep!

[Ray]

JMcN, on Aug 13 2007, 11:03 AM, said:

Balanchine's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", which I had the misfortune to sit through twice at the Edinburgh Festival a couple of years ago.  I nearly fell asleep!

Yeah, if they excerpted the act two dance/pas de deux I'd be happy.